The Rancher's Dance

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  So much for the offensive.

  “I don’t.” If he hadn’t already decided that he needed to get the addition finished as soon as possible so he wouldn’t have any reason or need to spend time at the Lazy-B—more specifically in the vicinity of Lucy Buchanan—he’d have packed up his tools and left.

  July or not, he didn’t welcome the woman’s temporary interest in his daughter any more than he welcomed his reaction to her whenever she came within ten yards of him.

  He turned away and slid another board of sheathing off the pile.

  “Just because you want to crawl into a grave doesn’t mean your daughter deserves having to join you there.”

  The sheathing fell back on the stack with a crash.

  He rounded on her. “How many daughters have you raised?”

  “None. But I—”

  “How many husbands have you buried?”

  Her gaze flickered. “None.”

  “Then until you have, I don’t really need your advice, do I?”

  “Yes, you do need my advice,” she countered, pushing to her feet much more awkwardly than she’d sat. “Or at least some insight into something you don’t know what it’s like to experience.” She stared up into his face. “Or did you grow up without a mother, too?”

  His jaw went so tight that it felt locked together.

  His mother was quite alive and living in Florida where she’d moved after divorcing Stan when Beck was eighteen.

  They all exchanged cards and gifts for birthdays and Christmases and that was about the extent of their relationship nowadays. As far as Mary no-longer Ventura was concerned, she’d already put in more than her share of time as wife and mother. And if Beck were fair, he knew that her life hadn’t exactly been easy. Not with the way Stan had been drinking back then.

  None of which had anything to do with anything. Particularly the woman standing in front of him. “As if you do? I’ve met your parents.”

  She gave him a pitying look that set his nerves even more on edge. “Belle is my mother in every sense of the word that matters to me.” Her voice was quiet. “But she didn’t become that until I was a teenager.”

  Dammit to hell.

  He turned away and set down his nailer on the stack of sheathing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.” He blew out a long breath and stared out at the stretch of land beyond the rear yard. Heat waves rose into the air and sweat dripped down his spine. “I hate July,” he muttered to himself, then turned around to face her.

  The tight smile had died, but what was in her eyes was worse. It wasn’t pity. Nor was it sympathy. It was a look that said she understood what he was feeling.

  It was the kind of look he’d seen time and time again on his wife’s face.

  Only he didn’t want understanding. He didn’t want empathy. Not from anyone.

  He just wanted—needed—to be left alone.

  To crawl back into his own grave, even if it was an emotional one, where nothing hurt anymore. But this slip of a woman kept getting in his way.

  And it irritated the life out of him.

  She had her own things to deal with, like her knee. Why couldn’t she just stick to that? “For God’s sake, sit down.” All of his irritation came out in his tone.

  She lifted her eyebrows again. “Because you have such a nice way of asking?”

  “Because it seems like you’re too stubborn for your own good to take care of yourself the way you should,” he countered, and moved past her to grab the crutches she’d left leaning against the sawhorse. His wife had done the same thing. Only her suffering had been where he couldn’t see it until it was too late to do anything to help. “Here.” He shoved the crutches at her.

  She grimaced a little, but took them and tucked them under her arms. It took the weight off her braced leg, although she didn’t make any attempt to move away and sit somewhere.

  Definitely stubborn.

  And irritating.

  He shoveled back his hair. “Did she die?”

  She didn’t have to ask who he meant and shook her head, not seeming shocked by his bluntness. “No. My mother—my natural mother, that is—is alive and well and living in Europe last I heard. I know a death is the worst thing that could possibly happen, but in some ways it might have been easier to deal with if she had died. Being left by choice has its own set of baggage, particularly to a child.”

  “How old were you?”

  “She left right after I was born.” She tugged at her ear, looking uncomfortable. “She was a dancer.” Then she looked over her shoulder at the house. “Could we just…go inside and talk? It’s hot out here. I’ll get you something cool to drink.”

  He wanted to curse all over again. “You shouldn’t be getting anyone anything.” But she was right. It was a swelteringly hot day. He could take it.

  But he, physically at least, was healthy as a horse.

  On the other hand, she looked like she was wilting.

  He still didn’t welcome her interference where Shelby was concerned, but after an unusually long absence, his wife’s voice was suddenly back inside his head, chiding him. “Fine. We’ll go inside.”

  Lucy looked relieved and swung her crutches around.

  “Wait. We don’t have to go around to the front.” Even though he knew the dangers, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and heat that had nothing to do with the outside temperature streaked up his arm.

  She paused and he saw the awareness underneath the questioning glance she sent him.

  He dropped his hand and jerked his chin toward the addition beside them. “We can go in through the back.” He cleared his throat before she could point out the obvious. That there were no steps yet leading up to the waist-high foundation. “I’ll help you up.”

  “Okay.” But she didn’t look any happier about it than he was as he lifted her onto the foundation before handing her the crutches again. Because she didn’t welcome the attraction, or because she didn’t want to need help?

  If she were anything like him, probably both.

  He jumped up behind her and followed her through the skeletal addition to the rear door of the house. It was still in place though covered with the same heavy plastic sheeting that protected the rest of the house’s backside. He pulled out his knife and sliced through the tape holding the barrier at the base and lifted it to one side before pushing the door open for her.

  He tried not to notice the warm scent of her as she sidled past him. Once she was through the doorway, he stepped through, too, letting the plastic fall back down behind him.

  Coolness immediately enveloped him and he couldn’t help but appreciate that at least.

  She didn’t look at him as she crutched her way across the room to the refrigerator and pulled open the door. “Lemonade or iced tea?”

  “Either.”

  She pulled out a clear pitcher and with a smooth twist, set it on the counter behind her before closing the door again.

  He watched her movements as she got down glasses and filled them with lemonade. She obviously didn’t need assistance so he didn’t offer any. “I fractured a bone in my foot about ten years ago and had to use crutches for a while,” he admitted. “I never did get the hang of ’em.”

  Lucy turned, a wry smile on her face as she held out one of the glasses to him. “Yes, well, I’ve had lots of practice getting around on the things.” She took her own glass and leaving the crutches leaning against the counter, limped her way to the table to sit down. Then she lifted her braced leg onto a chair and her skirt fell away again, revealing the complicated-looking brace that surrounded her leg from high on her calf upward, obviously continuing up her thigh beneath the dress.

  He realized he was staring at the perfect curve of her calf below the hinged contraption. He took the chair opposite her, keeping the whole width of the table between them.

  Where he couldn’t see her leg.

  And where he couldn’t smell the tantalizing warmth of her so damn easily.
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br />   Only then he ended up studying her face.

  She had the faintest sprinkling of freckles on her nose, he realized. Pale. Like gold dust.

  It matched the ones on her shoulders.

  And he wondered then if she had that dusting anywhere else.

  He lifted the lemonade and chugged half of it. He needed to get a grip or he’d drive himself into a heart attack before the summer was out. “How long ago did you sprain it?”

  “A month ago.” She looked at her leg. “I was in a brace even more restrictive than this one for a while.” She grimaced. “I really did think I was done with them.”

  “Maybe you would have been if you’d taken it easier.”

  “Knowing that you’re right doesn’t make it more palatable to hear.”

  She could have easily been describing him, when it came to hearing her telling him what his daughter needed.

  “I’ve always hated being injured,” she went on. “It’s just a pain.” She rolled her eyes and smiled wryly. “Literally and figuratively.”

  He almost found himself smiling, too. “Have you hurt yourself often dancing?”

  “Occasionally. I’ve actually been lucky in that regard.” She sipped her lemonade, then set the glass down again. Her slender fingertip absently slid up and down the side where the glass was already condensing. “But when I was twelve, I fell off a horse and nearly destroyed my knee. That’s how Belle came into our lives at first. She was my last physical therapist.” She smiled ruefully. “After a long line of them, who either got sick of living all the way out here, or got sick of their uncooperative patient.”

  “You, uncooperative?”

  She met his gaze, amused. “Hard to believe, I know. Anyway—” she shifted slightly in her seat “—once Belle was in our lives, both my father and I had the good sense to realize what we had. She helped me learn how to walk again—”

  He started. “Walk?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Until she came I wouldn’t even get out of the wheelchair because it was just too hard. I was really lucky, though. I’d had excellent surgeons who put things back together after Humpty fell off the horse. And a father who pretty much rearranged his life to accommodate me, and then, Belle. It took the better part of a year, but together we all succeeded.” She shrugged and patted her hand against the complicated looking brace. “I walked. And then I danced.” Her lips compressed. “Until now,” she added softly.

  All because she’d walked in on the slimeball who’d cheated on her, he thought. “Are you really going to be able to dance again?”

  Her dark lashes swept down. “One way or the other.”

  Which meant what? He didn’t want to wonder.

  He wondered anyway.

  She moistened her lips and looked up at him again. “Shelby’s lonely,” she said bluntly.

  Chat time was obviously over. He tried but couldn’t stem the defensiveness rumbling through his veins. “She has friends.”

  “Not the kind she’s lonely for,” she said gently.

  He shoved out of the chair, needing more space than the kitchen could possibly provide.

  What was preferable? Looking at Lucy and wanting things he hadn’t wanted in a very long time, or having her point out to him all the reasons why he wasn’t a good enough father? “What do you expect me to do? Go out and find myself a wife I don’t want just to give her a mother?”

  She looked pained. “Of course not. But how many adult women are in Shelby’s life?”

  He opened his mouth to reply, only to stop. “Annie Pope’s mother,” he finally said but felt his neck itch because he knew good and well that Lisa Pope worked the night shift at the hospital as a nurse. It was Jay Pope who watched their daughter Annie and Shelby on those rare occasions when she spent the night or occasionally played there after school. “Her kindergarten teacher,” he added doggedly. “Ms. Crowder.”

  “Dee Crowder. I know her. I’ll bet Shelby wanted to spend extra time at school.”

  “She likes school,” he defended.

  “I know. Shelby told me.” Her gaze remained steady on his. “It’s not unnatural for her to want to latch on to a woman who shows her some attention. Including me.”

  “It’s just because you’re a dancer,” he countered. “A ballerina. That’s the fascination.”

  “Part of it,” she allowed. “And look. I know I’m no child psychologist. I am just a dancer.” She pressed her hand over her chest and leaned toward him. “But I can tell you, Beck, I do know what she’s feeling inside. And it’s something I’d like to help with. And—” she lifted her hand before he could open his mouth “—I know you don’t want my help for anything. But you’re a good dad. You love your daughter and you surely must know that there are some things that even the greatest father can’t provide for a daughter. It doesn’t mean she loves you any less.”

  He crossed his arms over the hollowness in his chest. “You’re only here for the summer because of that.” He jerked his chin toward her propped-up leg. “Are you just bored or what?”

  “Is it too hard to believe that I like your daughter?”

  It wasn’t hard to believe.

  Just hard to take.

  “Everyone likes Shelby. Aside from the mother of a tantrum she threw this morning, she’s too sweet for her own good.”

  “Tantrum?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He wearily scrubbed his hand down his face but couldn’t wipe away the knowledge that—whether he was comfortable with it or not—Lucy had a point.

  Shelby was only six now. And as different in personality as she was from Nick when he’d been that age, at six there weren’t a helluva lot of differences—far as Beck could tell—between raising a girl and raising a boy.

  But those differences would increase the older she got.

  He dropped his hand and looked at Lucy. Even being prepared to see the understanding in her gaze didn’t soften the way it slammed into his gut.

  “Letting Shelby get attached to you isn’t the answer. You’re only visiting. Sooner or later, you’re going to leave. And where will that leave my daughter?”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. “That’s true, but I’ll be here for weeks yet. When does school start again?”

  He was feeling more and more like a doomed man. But it was information she could easily get from anyone in town. “Last week of August.”

  “That’s a little over a month away. I’m not due back in New York until September after Labor Day.” She moistened her lips, and leaned forward in her chair again, unintentionally giving him pretty much a straight view down her scooped neckline to shimmery white lace cups and the swells of soft, female flesh they encased. “She’ll be occupied again, probably even more so because it’ll be first grade. Real school—her words, not mine.”

  He dragged his gaze away and wrapped his itching palm around the glass he’d left on the table, just to fill it with something other than the urge to fill them with those curves. “Fine,” he agreed abruptly. Just cut to the chase and get the hell out of there. “What do you have in mind exactly?”

  A fresh light filled her eyes as if she knew she’d already won. She lowered her foot to the floor and stood up, her fingertips resting steepled on the table top. “I’d like to give her dance lessons.”

  He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen that coming.

  Maybe because his brain was fogged with lust?

  “I’m not asking for money or anything,” she added quickly when he didn’t immediately respond. “That’s not what this is about at all.”

  “Strangely enough,” he said deadpan, “I thought it was.”

  She looked surprised. Then laughed softly. “There is a sense of humor in there.”

  He grimaced. So she’d figured he was a recluse and an ogre. He didn’t know why that bugged him when it never had before. “On occasion.”

  She was still smiling. “Well, maybe those occasions will come more often.” Then she blinked a little and brushed h
er hands down the sides of her dress before carrying her glass to the sink and emptying it down the drain. “I don’t want to interfere with her day camp schedule, of course,” she said above the water she turned on to rinse out the glass.

  “Then when? And where? There’s no dance studio in Weaver.”

  She shook her head and turned toward him again. “Doesn’t need to be. We can do it here. Well, we could do it anywhere, for that matter. It’s not like we need a proper dance floor just to learn what the five positions are. Basics,” she added, obviously reading his blank look. “The basics of dance. But the Marley floor in the barn will be ideal.” Her expressive face became even more animated. “So, maybe mornings before she goes to day camp? Or afternoons. Or, you know. Whatever you think works best. I’ve got nothing but time after all.”

  “Now it’s about what I think?”

  She tilted her head, giving him a silent look.

  “Mornings,” he said. “Which morning?”

  “All of them?”

  “You’re one of those give-an-inch, take-a-mile women, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  Her smile widened. “Is that a yes?”

  He exhaled. Dammit. How was he supposed to resist that smile? “Yes. During the week.”

  She actually bounced off her toes and clapped her hands, only to wince when she landed.

  “And that—” he put his own glass in the sink and pointed at her “—is only one of the obvious mistakes staring us in the face. You’ve already overdone it and ended up in a brace. How are you going to keep from making things even worse for yourself with all this?”

  “The brace doesn’t prevent me from bending my knee, it just stabilizes it when I do.” She gave a little plié as if to prove it. “And there’re lots of things I can teach Shelby without me going off and doing grand jetés,” she dismissed. “So, we start tomorrow?”

  He crossed his arms again over his chest. Doomed didn’t even begin to describe what he was.

  “Before day camp. Assuming it doesn’t get cancelled again. She can either come over when I do or my father can shuttle her back and forth.” He didn’t figure Stan would mind. And if he did, Beck supposed he could start his own work at the Lazy-B later in the morning, so these dance lessons didn’t start at the crack of dawn.